Motivational Quotes

Leadership

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such.

- Maurois, Andre

Best Quotes about Leadership

The successful man doesn't use others, other people use the successful man, for above all the success is of service.

Caine, Mark

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done.

Packard, Vance

We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

Updike, John

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

Skill in the art of communication is crucial to a leader's success. He can accomplish nothing unless he can communicate effectively.

Allen, Norman

He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

Seneca

Some men must follow, and some command, though all are made of clay.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

10.

Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation's leaders wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return.

Lapham, Lewis H.

11.

The first thing a great person does, is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

12.

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

13.

Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.

Marcos, Ferdinand E.

14.

If you want to be comfortable -- take an easy job. If you aspire to leadership, take off your coat.

15.

Leadership is like the old galley ships. 100s are rowing, but only one (the captain) knows where they are going

16.

Each person must decide for himself what he wants each day. As a leader, I will expose you to the options and the likely consequences of those options. I'll even share my opinion if asked, but I'll never confuse it with the opinion, which simply doesn't exist.

Dyer, Wayne

17.

The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests.

Sheehy, Gail

18.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, We did it ourselves.

Lao-Tzu

19.

Show me the leader and I will know his men. Show me the men and I will know their leader.

Newcomb, Arthur W.

20.

The manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective. The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

Bennis, Warren

21.

Leadership is the wise use of power. Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it.

Bennis, Warren

22.

I don't think that a leader can control to any great extent his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

Nixon, Richard M.

23.

Leadership is the activity of influencing people to cooperate towards some goal which they come to find desirable and which motivates them over the long haul.

Tead, Orway

24.

When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

25.

Popularity is not leadership.

Marcinko, Richard

26.

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on. The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.

Lippmann, Walter

27.

I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.

Iacocca, Lee

28.

Leadership is not magnetic personality--that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends and influencing people --that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

Drucker, Peter F.

29.

Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice.

George Goethals

30.

We will make them think it's their idea. That's how all great leaders fool people.

Laura Preble

31.

The best leaders... almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols.

Peters, Thomas J.

32.

The leader seeks to communicate his vision to his followers. He captures their attention with his optimistic intuition of possible solutions to their needs. He influences them by the dynamism of his faith. He demonstrates confidence that the challenge can be met, the need resolved, the crisis overcome.

Haggai, John

33.

A good leader needs to have a compass in his head and a bar of steel in his heart.

Townsend, Robert

34.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

Bennis, Warren

35.

In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

36.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

37.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.

Maxwell, John C.

38.

Leadership must be established from the top down.

Nunn, Sam

39.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

John F. Kennedy

40.

The chief executive who knows his strengths and weaknesses as a leader is likely to be far more effective than the one who remains blind to them. He also is on the road to humility -- that priceless attitude of openness to life that can help a manager absorb mistakes, failures, or personal shortcomings.

Adair, John

41.

It is very comforting to believe that leaders who do terrible things are, in fact, mad. That way, all we have to do is make sure we don't put psychotics in high places and we've got the problem solved.

Wolfe, Thomas

42.

When placed in command -- take charge.

Schwarzkopf, Norman

43.

The measure of a great leader, is their success in bringing everyone around to their opinion twenty years later.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

44.

When the leadership is right and the time is right, the people can always be counted upon to follow -- to the end at all costs.

Seymour, Harold J.

45.

I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

46.

The highest of distinctions is service to others.

King George VI

47.

Men are lead by trifles.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

48.

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

Rockefeller, John D.

49.

When a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king.

Wanamaker, John

50.

Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.

Walton, Sam